Ventricles: Season 1, Episode 5: Canoes in Space

What can we learn about space exploration from Polynesian voyaging, or wayfinding? How does a frontier differ from a horizon? In this episode, Professor Eli Nelson explains the story of the Hokule‘a, a double-hulled voyaging canoe launched in 1975 to understand and recover the navigation techniques by which indigenous people found and settled the Pacific Islands. He touches on the various ways that people, from artists to authors of science fiction, have imagined voyaging canoes in the future, and in space.

Eli Nelson (Mohawk) is an assistant professor of American Studies at Williams College. He works on the history of Native science and Indigenous futurism and science fiction.

Audio credits: Thanks as always to The Overseas Ensemble, a collaboration between composer Paed Conca and Sarigama, for use of their music

Images: Special thanks to Elizabeth LaPensée for letting us feature these images of her paintings, Space Canoe, Returning, On Scrolls Carried by Canoe and Manoominike Mazinaanang